There are many who believe in ghosts and there are a lot who have had their own personal experiences which reinforce their beliefs. There are theories that there are different levels of spirit, from good, not so good to non-human entities (dark shadow figures). Little is really known about the non-human ones, so if you are considering getting into paranormal investigations, or are working in the field, it is best you take precautions just in case.

What are the best ways to protect yourself? Most will do some form of prayer, before and after the event.  The first part is to have spirit guides or protectors look after you while you are trying to connect with spirit. The end prayer is to thank those guides and ask them to remove any energy that is attached to you.

So, what if you are not religious, or have not got a particular faith? If you believe that there Is a possibility that there are spirits, you must believe in some level of spirituality. A prayer is just setting an intention, asking for the powers to protect you on your journey. You do not have to call on a specific deity, just something that you strongly believe in.

For example: instead of saying “I ask for the father, the son and the holy spirit” or “I ask the ark angels”, you could say something like “I ask the powers that be”. You are basically asking for the same thing, but most importantly, you must believe in your heart what you are saying for it to work.

Here below, are some examples of what you could say. You can say whatever you like, as long as it has meaning and conviction. Do not be rude or demanding, speak with good intention and a good positive vibe. While you are saying your intention/prayer, close your eyes, imagine a small ball of light, then let that light grow and surround your whole body. This is another form of protection.

1 (religious)

Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you, asking for your divine protection. We ask that you guard and protect us from any negativity or evil spirits that may come our way tonight. May your presence surround and shield us, keeping us safe from harm. In the lord’s name, we pray. Amen

2 (non-religious)

We call upon the powers that be, to guide us and protect us from any negativity or evil spirit that may seek to harm us. We ask that you surround us with love and light, protecting us from any dangers that may come our way.  We thank you for your presence and protection as we walk tonight.

Amen (if you wish to say)

After your investigation

(religious)

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we thank you for protecting us. We thank the archangels for their presence, shielding us from any dark spirits that may have approached us and sheltered us from their harm. We ask in the Lord’s name that you remove any negativity or spirit that has attached to us. We thank you heavenly father

Amen

(non-religious)

We thank the guardians and the powers that be for protecting us from any harm tonight. We thank you for warding off any negative or evil spirits that may have come our way.  We ask the powers that be to remove any energy, negativity or spirit that may have attached itself to us. Thank you

Amen (if you wish to say)

So, we have asked for spirit to be removed from us if they have attached, but what about the location? It is also good practise to ask any entities to go back to their realm. Thank the spirit for their communication, but they must go back and leave the location (you do not want anything lingering).

We thank spirit for communicating with us on this day and appreciate all that you have done. We wish you love and light and command in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that he guide you to where you came from, and any inhuman entity or spirit go to where the Lord decides for you.

We ask in the name of the Father that you must not attach to this location or any person that may dwell here. Dear Heavenly Father, please protect this place with your Holy Light and keep any unwanted or evil spirit away. Amen

Note: if you are not religious, replace the Lord etc. with something that has more meaning to you

So this is a basic idea of what you can say. It is good to write down your intentions/prayers in a book so you can read them out on your location.

Are all ghostly experiences paranormal? With some scientific research, it seems that it may not be the case. As most of you will know, everything that exists has a frequency, including our bodies; even our emotions have frequencies. Bruce Tainio, the researcher and founder of Tainio technology said that the human body resonates at a frequency of 62-78 MHz. In 1952, a German physicist, by the name of W.O Schumann discovered that even the earth produces an electromagnetic frequency. The earth’s frequency is about 7.83 Hz, which can fluctuate due to several factors. Solar flares, storms and even man-made things can affect the resonance.

So how can frequencies affect us when it comes to the paranormal? There have been numerous cases of infrasound where it has made people ill, or had a negative psychological effect, including anxiety and visions of shadows etc.

In the 1980s, Vic Tandy was working late, when he started to feel uncomfortable and anxious, as if someone was watching him.  He then saw a blob shape out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned round to look at it, it had disappeared. As a keen sword fencer, the next day he took his sword to work to clean. He put the sword into a vice and noticed that it was starting to vibrate.  Vic, a scientific man, knew that there would be a simple and logical explanation to what he had experienced. The fact that he saw the sword vibrating, gave him a clue as to what it could be.

The next day, with this evidence that he observed, he had the room tested for the presence of infrasound. They discovered that there was a frequency of around 19 Hz coming from an extractor fan that was installed there. Tandy later recreated the conditions in an experiment and found that it was around the 19 Hz frequency that caused these feelings of visions and other psychological effect. It is known as the fear frequency.

There are obviously cases where there is no low level frequencies at a location where paranormal activity occurs, but there are also times where this could explain the phenomena that some people experience.

 The early years of the house seemed to be peaceful and had no reports of paranormal activity. It was 28 years later, that reports of paranormal activity began. At first, there were mainly reports of the sounds of footsteps. It wasn’t until the 28^th of July 1900 that three of the rector’s daughters Ethel, Freda and Mabel Bull reported the apparition of a nun dressed in black with clasped hands as if praying. The three of them witnessed it after returning to the rectory from a garden party that they attended.  Ethel Bull reported seeing the ghostly figure again months later. 

It was not just the sisters that had witnessed the ghostly nun, the servants of the Bull family Mr Edward Cooper and his wife had numerous encounters for 20 years.

It was not just the nun that the Coopers encountered during their stay at the cottage near the rectory. From 1916 to 1919, they had almost nightly occurrences of activity, ranging from hearing a dog walking about the cottage and seeing a dark shadow figure person. Edward also said he saw a coach outside from his bedroom window, effortlessly and silently driving through the farmyard, going through buildings and hedges as if they weren’t there.

Until June 1929, the general public were not aware of the happenings at Borley Rectory, but that was soon to change, as an article in a national newspaper was released about it. The very next day, a man by the name of Harry Price, a well-known ghost hunter of that time arrived at the property. He did not spend much time there but remained interested in the property for many years. 

In 1937, the Rectory was put up for let and Harry jumped at the chance to do more investigations at the property, so decided to lease it. Harry was passionate about the paranormal and approached it with a scientific and logical mind, exposing many fake mediums and spiritualists over the years. He now had the chance to conduct controlled observations in a more scientific manner.  He promptly put an advert in the Times Newspaper requesting for people to help with the research. The advert said “Responsible persons of leisure and intelligence, intrepid, critical and unbiased to join a rota of observers in a year’s night and day investigation of alleged haunted house in home countries”.

From June 1937 to May 1938, he had 48 observers that took up the task. Within the group they had people from all kinds of professions, including: an Army colonel, a doctor, an engineer and an official from the Bank of England. They were given the task of staying at the property and sleeping in the blue room at night. It was the blue room that reportedly had the most activity.

It is not at all surprising that the people staying at the house had many reports to give to Harry Price. There were many cases of poltergeist activity observed, from moving objects and books, to unexplained pencil marks that unexplainably appeared on the walls. Noises such as footsteps and dragging were also documented.

One of the participants of the experiments was S G Welles, who was an Oxford Rhodes Scholar said in one of his documented cases “a luminous patch which appeared in the Blue Room for about a minute between 8.15 and 8.20pm on February the 16^th. Mr Welles, with three of his friends (who did not witness the strange phenomenon) tried to recreate the light that he had seen but could not. After all the encounters and incidents, it seems none of the observers witnessed the nun.

At the end of the experiment, Harry Price parted ways with the Rectory and was taken over by another occupant. Sadly, on the 27^th of February 1939, there was an accident where an oil lamp was knocked over in the main hall. It was ablaze with in minutes and the damage was extensive, to the point the roof collapsed before the fire brigade could get there. Even during the blaze, eyewitnesses of the event reported seen figures moving around near the blue room. One of the locals reported seeing two people in cloaks leaving the fire, one a girl and the other a formless figure.

Even years later, there have been multiple reports of paranormal activity in the area. As the title of the book written by Harry Price about the Borley Rectory ‘The Most Haunted House in England’ (1940), it seems that around that time it probably was.

A paranormal investigator’s main role is to try and communicate with and document evidence of spirits and other entities. If an investigator is experienced, they will perform some form of protection prayer (whether it be religious or spiritual) before and after an investigation. This ensures they are safe during the investigation, and nothing attaches to them when they leave.

As with darker arts, a lot absorb themselves in the rituals and practices, hoping to communicate with and do deals with potentially very dangerous entities. These kinds of beings have dark intentions and once you have made a deal, you will have a very hard time getting out of that contract, if at all.

Unfortunately, some (not all) who are enticed into this environment, are young people who are confused about life, troubled or dysfunctional. The sad fact about that is, that they sometimes find themselves and their purpose in life and regret their participation in such activities. The problem is, will this pact they made stay with them?

Some of the people we have spoken to regarding devil worshiping, they have said it is more about the freedom to do whatever they want without regret, such as gluttony, lust and debauchery etc. but is that just a way of enticing people into the culture? As with any religion or cult, there are different levels to their beliefs, from simple prayer, to sacrificing. People should be aware, that practicing anything of the occult nature, there could be consequences.

The same goes for those who use Spirit/Ouija boards, people mess around with them because they are curious about the unknown, but don’t really know about the dangers. There have been many reported cases where people dabbling with such objects, have had long lasting negative results, creating doorways for many different types of entities to enter whenever they like.  Once opened, they can potentially be very difficult to close or not at all.

If you are thinking about any communication with spirits, even in the likes of paranormal investigation, please do some research and make sure you are protected and safe.

When a medium/clairvoyant communicates with spirits, most will go into a meditative state and connect to divine source (the level where spirits reside). Within this process, they will communicate with their Doorkeeper.  The Doorkeeper is the one that lets spirit through, keeping out negative souls/entities and only letting in positive energies and spirits.  It is also the responsibility of the Doorkeeper to only allow one spirit in at a time.

Within the spiritual world, there are rules that both sides should abide by. For example, both spirit and person must respect each other when communicating. A spirit can put physical discomfort on a medium, to give evidence to the person receiving the reading, but the medium can request the energy/spirit take that discomfort away and it should comply. The medium should also respect the spirit world and cannot demand answers.

With all the clairvoyants and mediums we have talked to, all have said that they will get snippets of information and visions, and cannot have full conversations like two people would have. This leads to the question as to why this is the case. Is it that that the Doorkeeper prevents us from knowing too much about the other side?

There was an interesting hypothesis by author and paranormal investigator John E L Tenney (also known for the TV show Ghost Stalkers), saying that when on investigations there was only so much information we can get from spirits, believing that there may be an entity or spirit that prevents them from giving us too information. He also went on to say that maybe the reason for this, is because we as living beings are not allowed to know what is beyond the living realm. If we did know, there would be a lot of people that would wonder what the point of this life is and would want to go to the afterlife sooner than is ready for them.

Life can be difficult at times, we face so many struggles, but as some believe, these struggles are lessons we must learn from and should make us stronger and more compassionate; not give up and become less caring and unsympathetic to others. Depending on how you learn and grow as a person, some say it determines the level of afterlife you go to, or if you are going to be reincarnated.

When you take pictures and video there will be no doubt that there will be dust in the room (not necessarily visible to the eye or camera in normal light conditions). Cameras struggle to focus on such small things and it tries its best to make out what it detects, but it blurs it and makes it look larger than it is. When you have a light source illuminating the area the dust reflects the light accentuating it making it look like it is glowing. These are what people sometimes mistake as orbs.

The other thing that can reflect light and can be mistaken for an orb is a small insect. These are quite easy to pick out as they have quite distinguishable paths of flight.

A true orb is visible to the eye and sometimes interacts with people, illuminating and moving with specific questions.

Blurring can also be an issue when taking photos in low lighting conditions without a flash. The reason is because when a digital camera is in auto mode it tries to make several decisions to get the best results. These are ISO, shutter speed and aperture. The ISO determines how much light accesses the camera’s sensor, the shutter speed is how long the shutter is open when taking the image and the aperture is how wide the lens is open.

The ISO is not really going to affect the focusing, but if it is too high it could make the image grainy.

The shutter speed or exposure time is the main reason for an image blurring. It is basically how long the shutter is open to allow light in to take the image, the longer it is open the more light gets in. For example if you are taking a picture of someone or an object that is moving around, a shutter speed of around 1/500 and above (one five hundredth of a second) should be enough to prevent blur in the image. If the person is standing still and there is no background movement a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second should be fine. When the camera is in auto mode and lighting conditions are poor, there is a good chance it will select a low shutter speed making any movement blurry.

Here is an extreme example of a slow exposure time: If you go into the manual mode of a camera and set the shutter to be open for ten seconds, it will allow 10 seconds of light/image to be processed by the sensor (you will need a tripod to take this kind of picture as any movement will blur). The first part of the shot have someone in the frame for 5 seconds, then get them to move out of the scene. The camera will take 5 seconds of the subject and another 5 seconds of the background so the main subject would appear transparent. Here is an example of one I did

Camcorders and other video recording devices obviously work differently mechanically to cameras that take still images but the same rules apply to dust and insects reflecting light. So if you see something bright, slightly transparent and spherical in shape moving across the screen, it just might be dust or a bug.

Some of the more expensive video cameras out there offer adjustable frame rates. The bog standard hi8 camcorders usually have a frame rate of 29.97 fps (frames per second). The higher the fps the better quality the video will be when the footage is slowed down. If you have a video camera that takes 60fps per second, that is going capture 30 more frames in a second than if you were to have your video set at 30fps. The higher the frame rate, the more information will be captured per second. Slowing down the footage can be handy if you catch something you want to look at further in detail and review frame by frame. Most DSLR cameras can take video and usually offer higher frame rates, as do most modern video camcorders.

Please be aware frame rate and shutter speed are not the same.

Yes… Anyone can do an investigation with very little equipment

If you want to take up paranormal investigation up as a hobby or further, it can prove to be expensive. Camcorders, CCTV, full spectrum cameras, thermocouple / thermometers, audio recorders, SLS Cameras, Thermal Imaging, Rem Pods and EMF detectors are just some of the devices we use and can cost 1000’s of pounds.

Do you really need all this to gain evidence of activity?

The answer is no.

EVP’s (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) are a common way of capturing evidence. This is where you set an audio recorder running and you ask questions in hope of a response. When you play it back you may sometimes pick something up that you did not hear at the time of the recording.

Digital audio recorders are very cheap these days and you can pick one up for around £25. If you cannot afford an audio recording device or you do not have one at hand, you could try your phone. If you have an old analogue recorder, that would be great as some believe analogue is better than digital for picking up disembodied voices.

When doing EVP sessions try and keep background noise to a minimum. If you hear any background noise like someone outside or any other explainable sound that you hear, make sure you document it by commenting. This makes it much easier ruling out faint noises or bangs when listening back.

Video is another way of trying to capture activity. Even using your mobile phone can be good for gaining evidence. Night vision camcorders are relatively cheap now as you can get them off the like of Ebay second hand. They are old now but the old Hi8 camcorders are ideal for investigating. Sony do a version called Nightshot, a quick look up on Google and you will find loads of info on them.

Click here for our guide on taking photos and videos , there are some things you need to be aware of when videoing and taking snaps

You felt nothing. We can’t even comprehend nothing. No pain, no worries, no pressures of life or anger or hate.

When we die, there could be a few things that could happen. We could go to another place and be with our families and loved ones. We could be reincarnated and live life as a new person, or there could be nothing. Worst case scenario, we could experience nothingness when we pass. No hurt, bad memories, regret or any other emotion we experience in this life.

For anyone who doesn’t have faith, the thought of death can be quite scary. Death is as natural as birth and should be nothing to fear. 

Some believe that this life is a journey, and lessons are to be made before we go to the next level. If we don’t learn the lessons we need to learn, such as compassion, humanity and kindness, we could be reincarnated again and again until we do learn. If we do learn, and get to a higher level of authenticity, then we could stay in the afterlife.

There have been many reports of people who have died, been resuscitated, and have had experiences of the afterlife.  Some people will say that they truly can’t be dead because once you are dead, you are dead. The problem with that argument, is that some have been pronounced dead for a period of time where there has been no brain activity, and with the current understanding of science, this should not be possible. One such case is Dr Mary Neal, she was under water for 30 minutes after a kayak accident. She had an experience where she had an outer body experience and met her loved ones. She has written a book about her experience called To Heaven and back and has done numerous interviews about her experience. You can view her Ted Talk on YouTube

There are others (mostly children), that can remember things from their previous lives and can tell stories and give facts that they could not possibly know. Some have even visited family members from their previous life, and the family members can confirm that these children could not have known things without being their deceased family member.

It Is very strange that some report going to places where their loved ones are, then others report past lives. One theory is that some who have had tragic endings or have not fulfilled their full potential in life, can come back to relearn or accomplish their goals that are intended for them. 

Whatever our outcome, while we are on this planet, we should try to be the best we can, to ourselves and others. The world we live in is full of struggles and battles and it is how we deal with them that is important.  Aiming to become stronger, wiser and more compassionate human beings from our struggles and sufferings in life.

Love and light

There are a lot of paranormal shows on the television, making paranormal investigations and groups very popular to the general public. I have personally worked within my own team and joined in with other investigating groups. Throughout this time, I have came across a wide range of people, some have been level headed and have a professional attitude, then others have been quite the opposite. Some who get into it, obviously have watched too much TV and act in a immature way and totally miss the point of what paranormal investigations are about.

Some claim to have to have psychic abilities and start claiming all sorts of stuff. They might in fact have a gift, but that does not gain or capture evidence. The reason for getting into this field, is to hopefully catch clear and conclusive audio and visual content.

Another thing to remember, is always act in an appropriate manner at all times, whether it is with a client or when trying to communicate with spirits. At the end of the day, spirits are just people that are no longer in physical form. I am sure most people would not like a group of strangers walking into their house starting to act the fool and being loud. Always treat your locations with the upmost respect.

I would advise strongly against, any form of spirit board/Ouija board, or anything like that. That could lead to all sort of trouble, these things can be very dangerous, and could potentially open up things you can’t deal with. It has the potential to open portals and even form an attachment to you personally. At the end of the day, as investigators, our job is to document activity that is already there and not create more activity than was there before.